Jennifer Hall

Leonardo Da Vinci Defense Jennifer Hall

The Portrait of Mona Lisa in Walters Art Museum, Baltimore Maryland is an original work by Leonardo Da Vinci. However, scholars attributed it as the finest copy. Da Vinci wants to defense: It is his painting! Special scientific skills that Leonardo used on this painting have been discovered. Copyist should not be able to copy the unique patterns (elements) that only Leonardo had used in oil paintings. Louvre pointed out a question: Leonardo Da Vinci doubtless started to paint Mona Lisa in Florence around 1503. Leonardo seems to have taken the completed portrait to France in 1516 rather than giving it to the person who commissioned it? One of the reasonable answers to it is that Leonardo painted more than one Mona Lisa. He practiced on a canvas first, maybe a few more times, gave it to the commissioner, and then painted the final version on a piece of poplar. As he was satisfied on his last Mona Lisa, he gave it to the new French King. The Walters Art Museum collects a portrait of Mona Lisa on canvas. It has not been authenticated to Leonardo but as a best early copy. It is hard for scholars to accept a newly discovered Leonardo's work as an original, as scholars worldwide always think one being a copy if there is an existing painting in the same subject in a Museum. Scholars have been believing that there were only about fifteen (now maybe a little bit more) paintings by Leonardo. No scholar expects to see more in discovering. Why being such a super genius, Leonardo only left about fifteen paintings? One of the possible reasons is that people have not recognized his unique composition elements formed from his essences, skills, and craftsmanship in his paintings. People only believe those "reliable provenances or records", rather than the painting itself. All unrecognized paintings are ignored or simply being considered as copies of the millions. Therefore, we need an interpreter to translate those special but very common elements found in his existing fifteen paintings. A unique nature, the 111.24 degree golden angle (composition element) has been found in all of Leonardo da Vinci's recognized paintings as well as the two Mona Lisa portraits in Louvre and Walters. This discovery distinguishes Leonardo's works from that of all other Renaissance or later painters. Any "copyist" would not copy those composition elements into his work as the copyist did not know the existence of such elements.